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Here and there little deserted chapels lie out on the marsh, officeless since the days of the monks of Canterbury; and everywhere there are farms, with hundreds of sheep grazing on the thick pastures. Little Ansdore Farm was on Walland Marsh, three miles from Rye, and about midway between the villages of Brodnyx and Pedlinge. It was a sea farm.
"I'll have to make some sort of a plan, though I'll have to sell this place and give Ellen a share of it. And me where ull I go?" She must go pretty far, so that when the child came Brodnyx and Pedlinge would not get to know about it.
She would like to see him not to talk to him of Martin, she couldn't bear that, and there would be something vaguely improper about it but he was a clergyman, for all he disguised the fact by calling himself a priest, and she would offer him the living of Brodnyx with Pedlinge and let the neighbourhood sit up as much as it liked.
So the next morning when Brodnyx bells were ringing in the east she drove off through Pedlinge on her way to Broomhill level. She felt rather uneasy and ashamed, especially when she passed the church-going people. Even the removal of the Lion and the Unicorn, and the transformation of her comfortable, Established religion into a disquieting mystery had not made her allegiance falter.
Joanna climbed down on the wooden platform, and signalled to the porter-stationmaster to take out her box. "What, you back, Miss Godden!" he said, "we wasn't expecting you." "No, I've come back pretty sudden. Do you know if there's any traps going over Pedlinge way?" "There's Mrs. Furnese come over to fetch a crate of fowls. Maybe she'd give you a lift." "I'll ask her," said Joanna. Mrs.
The joint parishes of Brodnyx and Pedlinge had made up their minds that Joanna Godden would now be compelled to marry Arthur Alce and settle down to mind her own business instead of what was obviously a man's; and here she was, still at large and her business more a man's than ever.
Joanna stooped and caught her to her heart, and for a moment, the last moment, the big and the little sister were as in times of old. Ellen's wedding was the most wonderful that Brodnyx and Pedlinge had seen for years.
She looked into the future, and between the present moment and the consummated union of North Farthing and Ansdore, she saw thrilling, half-dim, personal adventures for Martin and Joanna ... the touch of his hands would be quite different from the touch of Arthur Alce's ... and his lips she had never wanted a man's lips before, except perhaps Socknersh's for one wild, misbegotten minute ... she held in her heart the picture of Martin's well-cut, sensitive mouth, so unlike the usual mouths of Brodnyx and Pedlinge, which were either coarse-lipped or no-lipped.... Martin's mouth was wonderful it would be like fire on hers....
Alce a few weeks after her arrival, but a "visit" is not a call, and when at the end of three months his wife still ignored her existence, Ellen made Arthur come over with her to Brodnyx and Pedlinge on the Sundays she felt inclined to go to church, saying that she did not care for their ways at Romney, where they had a lot of ceremonial centering round the alms-dish.
Visitors, you know, come to our little church, and are surprised to find us so far behind the times in our music. At Pedlinge we've only got a piano, but I'm not worrying about that now.... Perhaps the harmonium might be patched up enough for Pedlinge, where our services are not as yet Fully Choral ... it all depends on how much money we collect." "How much do you want?"
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